The Chico Barque Project

The Chico Buarque Project

The Chico Buarque Project is a work-in-progress devoted to English translations of the music of this great Brazilian songwriter. The organizers of the event had been working hard on the music and dance numbers and wanted to have an audience. Sounded fair to me. First off I signed up for Brown Paper Tickets for a ticket vendor. Then I built a blog, designed with the brilliant colors used on the CD, where I could put the link. Then I beefed up existing social media and email lists to drive them to the link.Read More

Early on Facebook was best for rallying the troops. But after putting up better images on the banner, audience began to show up. I made sure that photos where taken at rehearsals and posted to face book, along with images of costumes that choreographer Jeane July had performed in.

Mailchimp is great for sending out email blasts. We could reach friends of the producers and performers and later the list grew naturally from a collector on the site and pass-alongs.

After hearing that the guitarist’s wife had taken dozens of images at a rehearsal, I asked the executive producer to sort the photos. I brought them into iPhoto and made a slide show, put one of chico’s songs to it and uploaded it to youtube. InHouse Music was paid to have it included in a blast to 9,000 address, Three times. We had 175 views by the close of ticket sales.

In the last week The event organizer made the rounds of radio interviews. With all the effort, the show sold out. 40 people had to be turned away at the door because there just wasn’t enough room.